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NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An elderly, non-file-sharing grandmother from East Texas, who had been sued by the RIAA after being displaced by Hurricane Rita, has sought leave to file counterclaims against the RIAA record companies for using unlicensed investigators. In her counterclaims (PDF) Ms. Crain claims that the record companies 'entered into an agreement with a private investigations company to provide investigative services which led to the production of evidence to be used in court against counterclaim plaintiff, including the identification of an IP address on the basis of which counterclaim defendants filed their suit... [They] were at the time of this agreement aware that the aforementioned private investigations company was unlicensed to conduct investigations in the State of Texas specifically, and in other states as well... [T]hey agreed between themselves and understood that unlicensed and unlawful investigations would take place in order to provide evidence for this lawsuit, as well as thousands of others as part of a mass litigation campaign... [T]he private investigations company hired by plaintiffs engaged in one or more overt acts of unlawful private investigation... Such actions constitute civil conspiracy under Texas common law.'"

Lawyers aren't the real problem, and getting rid of them isn't a solution. The underlying problem is that some people are anti-social jerks who have discovered that they can get their way by bullying others. Under our current system, the jerks hire lawyers to do their bullying for them. If you eliminate the lawyers, the jerks will just find a new set of bullies to do their dirty work.

The real solution is to give ordinary, decent people a way of striking back when the bullies get on their case. Counter-suits, like the one mentioned in this article, are a good way of doing that. If everyone who was wrongly accused by the RIAA decided to launch a nasty counter-suit rather than caving in, the litigation strategy would grind to a halt- or at least focus on the worst, most obvious real offenders rather than people chosen at random.

The problem isn't the RIAA going around sueing innocent people (well not the big problem), the problem is corporate interests buying never-ending copyright and increasingly stricter punishments for doing anything that might possibly be used to violate said purchased perpetual copyright. The question becomes, what the bejesus can those of us who care (the nerdy minority) do?

Lawrence Lessig goes further. The ultimate problem isn't that the RIAA is bullying people with lawsuits. The lawsuits are enabled by the likes of the RIAA being able to buy the laws they think they want. And that in turn is enabled by our broken political system that can ignore the will and the good of us all in response to slick but wrong (even obviously wrong) PR campaigns or for the sake of a few measly campaign dollars.

These PR campaigns and dollars come from a bunch of extremely short-sighted legal hustlers with no sense of civic responsibility. Swarm intelligence works when the individuals of the swarm actually think, but many of these special interests are too narrowly focused on getting handouts. The AARP is an example of this. Some years ago the AARP was pushing hard for more expansion to Social Security, Medicare, and so forth. The AARP was pushing for more than even a majority of their own members wanted! Had they got everything they asked for, the US might've gone broke during the dotcom burst. They only saw it as their "duty" to get everything they could for their "clients", and what that might do to the country wasn't even on their radar. That was someone else's problem. And that was only part of the game-- they ask for the moon, and hope when they get "cut" back, they'll be left with about what they really wanted. Sometimes however, they score bigger then they expected, and when that happens do they back off? Give some back? Heck no, take the money and run! And push for even more! It's be nice if our system was robust enough that they could push as hard as they like without fear of breaking anything, but our system doesn't seem to be quite up to that. When the AARP was pushing, Big Pharma was only too happy to help get a fat drug benefit "for seniors". And they got that part, most unfortunately. Now we all get to foot absolutely outrageous bills for drugs. Many other countries took the much more sensible approach of forcing Big Pharma to lower their prices.

As Lessig said, it is totally against the public interest to have the extreme Intellectual Property laws we have these days, with copyright lasting 95(!!!) years, and our current berserk and broken patent system. Same goes for our crazy health care. Big Pharma is in many ways even more extreme than the RIAA/MPAA. Don't know what Lessig can do about it, but I suppose he's got something in mind.

Lawyers are like guns. They're not good or evil by themselves, whether they are depends on how you use them. Just because most use them for evil doesn't mean that the lawyers themselves are.Sure, there are the crooks that jump in joy every time they found a loophole in a law so they can milk some unsuspecting victim and basically collect protection money, due to his victim not understanding the law. They're basically the legal (as in "law world" not as in "allowed") equivalent of malware writers. Using the

But of course they're supplying the other side as well, and making a profit from all conflict.

The US is in the crappy state it's in because of lawyers. The fact that that granny's lawyer happens to be fighting an evil cartel of blood-sucking music industry parasites sounds nice, but it's just business as usual for a profession predicated on causing misery so that they can defend against it.

thats rubbish. america wasn't anything like russia or somalia 50 years ago and it didn't have so much insane litigation either. your just pointing out extreme's, it doesn't mean we should be putting up with this ligigation happy bullshit.

Well, the examples you cite don't lack lawyers, they lack laws. Or rather, they lack people caring about the laws. Because the laws that exist are not for, but against the people.And basically, to turn your argument back at you, this can and possibly will happen to the US as well if more and more laws made against instead of for the people enter the legal system. Sooner or later people will not be able anymore to see laws as rules made to protect them. They see them as oppressive tools used against them. An

It seems like every other day we either find out that the RIAA used some illegal practice or lost a case against a so called music pirate though they keep dishing out lawsuits. The RIAA train has derailed but it doesn't seem to be slowing any time soon.

No, every other day we hear of some crackpot motion to dismiss or lawsuits under RICO etc. which have approximatly zero chance of success. If slashdot only reported on actual rulings, there'd be a lot less. Like that case that's been up at least half a dozen time where they started suing the mother, found out it was the daughter, went on to sue her and finally dropped the charges against the mother. Reported like a huge win on slashdot, when it did pretty much nothing good for the family. I think they were

I would be interested in seeing the stats you are describing. Is there a site you can link where they are compiled? You are correct in pointing out the flawed nature of only going by the anecdotal evidence.
I just wish you hadn't dumbed down your message with your pissy attitude and tone -- it makes it more likely that your thoughts will get lost in the noise.

It seems like every other day we either find out that the RIAA used some illegal practice or lost a case against a so called music pirate though they keep dishing out lawsuits. The RIAA train has derailed but it doesn't seem to be slowing any time soon.

You only hear about the people striking back because they're the rare counter-example. You don't hear about the thousands and thousands of people who settle to get the lawyers off their backs.

The RIAA train hasn't derailed. The function of the lawsuits isn't to make money. The goal is to scare people away from file sharing and back into the music store, either bricks and mortar or online. As long as the lawsuits stop the bleeding from file sharing, they only have to break even, or just avoid losing

Well, they convinced me: I have purchased enough CDs over the years to listen for months without hearing a repeat. Nowadays the only CDs I purchase are from local acts, to help support them. Plus, it's nice to talk to the artist and be appreciated, rather than "another face in the crowd of 50,000" at a stadium as they're whisked away by their security.

What's amusing is that Metallica was Napster's biggest "advertiser" back in the mid-90s.

Well, I guess I must be aging too.When I was "young" (read: under 25), music was my love. Well, besides computers. I have a few hundred CDs. But for almost 10 years now, I didn't buy a single one. Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe I just can't stomach the cover versions of "my" songs, dunno.

Back then, there also wasn't much that competed with CDs for my money. Fashion would've been the only other thing to waste money on, and I've never been the fashion geek. So all my spending money went into music.

I'm happy for the RIAA to get anything and everything that's coming to them, but I don't think it will change their litigation-happy behaviour at all. The problem is that the RIAA is just a faceless body representing the big labels, and until people start bitching about Sony, Universal Music, EMI etc, then what does the RIAA care if people hate them? They're not selling the products, they exist solely as a trade group [wikipedia.org], and if they take all the flak that rightfully belongs to the labels, they'll still do it.

They will if the courts start costing them big-time money (more than they do already). OK, so they're getting $3000 settlements. How much are they paying their pack of lawyers per hour? I bet it's a lot, so even the profit from that might be small.

Start having a bunch of people hitting back. Lawyers in court == more lost money. Start having them losing cases for big money == more lost money. Start having the courts perhaps decide that they lose the rights to press suites in regards to the material they're

I'm happy for the RIAA to get anything and everything that's coming to them, but I don't think it will change their litigation-happy behaviour at all.

Depends on the findings. There was a case that came up just recently where the RIAA is being accused of both federal and state RICO charges as well as quite a number of other things. While this is only a civil case, these are criminal charges. If the findings go to the plaintiff on some of the more serious charges, and were the RIAA not to reform itself, the remedies in a follow-on case from any other party could be quite severe indeed.

Amen!!!!! Imagine one week if Sony sold absolutely nothing across the whole US. Ouch! They'd freak out, and Howard Stringer's head would be served to shareholders on a platter. Hey, you don't even need to boycott them all. Pick them off one by one. Causes division in the ranks: While one suffers the others shrug.In the past consumer boycotts have rarely if ever worked, because most consumers either don't know or don't care, or think what's the use. So form a message and target it. Spread it on Myspace and Y

I'm betting that most people reading this thread know exactly which companies are responsible. As I work in a local PC shop, I get a chance to steer lots of people clear of all sorts of Sony products, and tell them who else is going after people {Warner is another good target.} The best thing we all can do is inform everyone around us, non-technical types [especially] included.

The problem is that the RIAA is just a faceless body representing the big labels, and until people start bitching about Sony, Universal Music, EMI etc, then what does the RIAA care if people hate them?

Can I ask everybody to stop repeating this without thinking. RIAA means Record Industry Association. It represents the entire industry, and hurts the collective image of labels as a whole, even non-RIAA ones.

If people really decide to boycott labels, they'd go against any label, and probably go for independent

The problem is that the RIAA is just a faceless body representing the big labels, and until people start bitching about Sony, Universal Music, EMI etc, then what does the RIAA care if people hate them?

In the context of these lawsuits, "RIAA" is just a synonym for the Big 4 record companies and their affiliated labels. Not every member of the RIAA is involved in this thing. It's just the Big 4 cartel. So if you boycott the major labels you're on track. Anyone who wants to look at any particular article, look up the names of the plaintiffs in that case, and put in a post listing them, will be doing a public service.

But when I say "RIAA" I'm talking about the 4 major record companies and their labels.

FirstGov.gov is the U.S. Government's official Web portal to all Federal, state and local government Web resources and services.The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale is a 1-5 rating based on the hurricane's present intensity. This is used to give an estimate of the potential property damage and flooding expected along the coast from a hurricane landfall. Wind speed is the determining factor in the scale, as storm surge values are highly dependent on the slope of the continenta

Look, I'm all for the RIAA burning in hell. But I really hate the idea of having to use a "licensed" investigator. The following *is not* to be taken for a RIAA analogy:

Let's say your laptop is stolen. Let's say you had a program that reported IP addresses. Someone buys your laptop from the thief for a stupid low price and hooks it up. It reports their IP. You turn the evidence over to a cop who goes to get your laptop.

1. You were not licensed to be an investigator.2. The program author was also not licensed.3. The cop obtained evidence from you.

The person who bought stolen property cannot be charged with a crime. All because you didn't have a "license".

Instead, the law requiring a license should be replaced with a "suspects' bill of rights". Anyone can investigate, but if his/her rights are violated, then the evidence becomes poisoned fruit.

"The person who bought stolen property cannot be charged with a crime. All because you didn't have a "license""
Wait what? Are you saying if you buy something on ebay and it turns out it was stolen you should be the one charged?
How can you possibly know whether something on ebay is stolen or not?

buy 4 $1000 items for $50 assuming each is broken, and in the end you can probably get 1 working if you have the skills, saving $800 on buying one, or if you get two working you can sell one at half it's value and still profit by $300 AND the one you kept for yourself.

Actually, that person can be charged with a crime, receiving stolen property. That whole investigating thing has to with if you were paid or not. You are not being paid to find your own stolen property. The RIAA paid another company to investigate for them. The key word is "company". IE a for profit organization. Thats where the whole "unlicensed investigators" thing comes in.

What isn't legit is hiring someone without a proper license to do this professionallyon your behalf. The same thing goes for providing security services of any kind (incl.cybersecurity...)- YOU can do it for yourself, but if you hire someone, you need to hiresomeone with a license or operating the umbrella of one to make it legit if somethinggoes wrong.

Where your analogy falls apart is that you make the assumption that a consultant doingthe work is analogous to your doing the same work. It's not as far as the civil andcriminal laws are concerned. Since the RIAA or the Labels themselves did not have directhire employees doing this work, it's not the same thing as what you present- they hireda an outside professional (or group thereof) that didn't have a Federallicense for the work being done or a Texas state PI's license. This makes it all subjectto litigation like what's now happening to them.

What I'm wondering is at what point this becomes something actionable in the criminal courts? Sucking a few grand out of the RIAA in civil court is all well and good, but their shit isn't going to stop until they get dragged in front of a grand jury and it becomes a fullblown *criminal* investigation.

Of course, meanwhile suits like this one become fodder for the evidence cannon...

Let's say your laptop is stolen. Let's say you had a program that reported IP addresses. Someone buys your laptop from the thief for a stupid low price and hooks it up. It reports their IP. You turn the evidence over to a cop who goes to get your laptop.

In addition to the objections others have pointed out, the situations are not analogous. Stealing your laptop is a criminal offense. Despite their propaganda, unlicensed copying of a RIAA member organization's content is a civil matter AND not theft.

So is copyright infringement. The beginning of every movie tells you so.

No. Copyright infringement is a civil matter, that's why the RIAA is suing everybody...in civil court. Counterfeiting, on the other hand, may be what you're thinking of, which is the manufacture and/or distribution of copyrighted material without authorization. Any copyright infringement suits brought as a result of someone being busted for counterfeiting will be brought...in civil cour

(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -

(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,

against the members of RIAA? Are the members of RIAA shielded from any responsibility for actions the organization takes, presumably in their interests? Do the members have a sufficient quantum of control over RIAA (either explicit in the membership agreement, or de facto) that they could be sued for its activities? Sort of analogous to "piercing the corporate veil" and going after a corporation's owners, which can be done in limited circumstances? As long as the RIAA members can live comfortably above t

> [T]he private investigations company hired by plaintiffs engaged in one or more overt acts of unlawful private investigation... Such actions constitute civil conspiracy under Texas common law.

Just so. Also, as noted in the p2p article their actions "amount to extortion". If someone says "If you do/do not do X, then I will/will not do Y", that's extortion. When it's done across state lines, it's a federal offense, and none of the plaintiffs are Texas corporations.

I'm looking forward to the day someone manages to get charges filed rather than just filing suit, and someone from the MafIAA gets arrested. My money's on a state's attorney general doing it, and Texas is a very likely place for that to happen. In any case, KICK ASS, GRANNY!

I have learned this lesson by proxy. Anytime I met someone young gentleman from Texas, he was unfailingly polite. First I was saying, that it must be all the guns everyone is carrying around, but they do that in New Hampshire too and they are some mean sons of witches there. So if its not the guns, it must be the Grannies!

She has not won anything. This lady is from East Texas. Most patent leeches do everyting they can to file in East Texas because it is almost certain that the judge will rule in their favor. I have no doubt that the case is already biased against her, and if she loses the RIAA will use it as precident for other cases

The first time I had to go to court in Texas, was when I was in a minor car accident. I got a bill from the other person for $4093.27 in damage to the vehicle. When I showed them the poli

By the look of it you do not have to know anything about law either. If the granny is right (and I hope she gets a sponsor to ensure that she gets through with it) the evidence they used in many other cases will have no bearing in a US court of law. That is probably one of the most entertaining twists to the RIAA lawsuits affairs of late.

This probably isn't helpful, since the problem is likely symptomatic of her problems with computers rather than the cause. However, if you're running Windows (from the later versions of 95 onwards), there's a single-click option.

In XP, it's under the file/directory window's Tools->Folder-Options... dialog, on the General tab. Select "Single click to open an item (point to select)".

IIRC, this was called "Web View" when first introduced; it was supposed to make the computer interface more consistent w

Texas has a similar requirement for private investigators to be licensed. So THIS granny's attorney is filing a copycat countersuit. This is the second buffalo in the stampede.

I expect we'll shortly see television ads from the law offices of James Sokolove asking whether you have received a settlement request from the RIAA, which is about to be nibbled to death by ducks. B-)

Not sure, could be any of the following.
- Living a little inside
- Living a little outside
- Living a lot inside
- Living a lot outside
- Dying a little outside
- Dying a lot outside
- Dying a lot inside

It all depends on what you want to reverse...

I think it's great that people are fighting back against the RIAA. I completely support what the RIAA are meant to stand for (I.E. the anti-piracy thing) but their attitude, methods and motives are terrible.

Its the little old lady who got a subpoenaGo granny, go granny, go granny goShe got a mean nasty letter after fleeing hurricane RitaGo granny, go granny, go granny goIt said "Hey, we caught you downloading our garbage,so we've hired a bunch of lawyers to sue you to Dodge!"

And everybody's saying theres nobody meanerThan the mean nasty lawyers from the RIAAaaahhhhThey sue real fast and with no good reasonThey're like "Grandmas should be in open season!"

Its the little old lady who got a subpoena...

You can see her on the stand telling the truth nowGo granny, go granny, go granny goWith her four lawyers and her bi-focal glasses nowGo granny, go granny, go granny go"Them lousy RIAA jerks hired an investigatorwho would be better occupied as my personal masturbator!"

You can see her on the stand her kickin' RIAA ass nowGo granny, go granny, go granny goWith her four salivating lawyers and her beehive hair nowGo granny, go granny, go granny goShe's gonna have an RIAA executive as her waitercause they cant help being evil vindicators

And everybodys saying theres nobody meanerThan the little old lady who got a subpoenaShe counter sues real fast and packs a punchThey say She's out to eat some asshole's lunch...

I don't think it has anything to do with anyone wanting free music that badly; I think it has to do with putting a stop to the Gestapo-esque investigative tactics the RIAA is using. Even when they actually get the right person, they are trying to dish out punishment which is severely disproportionate to the offense in question. And when they don't, they cost innocent people thousands of dollars in legal expenses. At which point, they want to be able to just say, "Oops, sorry; we'll just drop the charges.

Basically I wonder why there ain't more lawyers jumping that train. I mean, think of it:1. The RIAA peppers the legal apparatus with lawsuits. It's a given that a fair lot of those won't stand a minute in court and pretty much beg for a countersuit.2. The RIAA has deep pockets that are ripe for picking. They can pay whatever sum you can convince the judge to grant you.3. Most people who got into a mess with the RIAA just want those suckers off their back. I.e. it's easy to get them to sign over not half, bu

It's a tremendous economic sacrifice and risk for any lawyer to take on the defense of any of these cases. You have no understanding of the economics at all. If you did, you'd understand why "there ain't hardly any lawyers jumping on that train". The RIAA will pay its lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars on any given case. How many of the defendants have the means and ability to pay their lawyers that kind of money?

Ok, I admit, I'm not familiar with the situation in the US. Here, no money exchanges hands (besides the initial payment, which is nominal and usually less than 500 bucks) before the case is settled. Furthermore, we have a rather simple "loser pays all" system, where whoever loses the trial gets to pay for everything. His lawyer, his opponent's lawyer, court cost. The whole bill is footed by the party that doesn't win the trial. In case they reach an agreement, that bill is usually split somewhere (most of t

Ok, I admit, I'm not familiar with the situation in the US. Here, no money exchanges hands (besides the initial payment, which is nominal and usually less than 500 bucks) before the case is settled. Furthermore, we have a rather simple "loser pays all" system, where whoever loses the trial gets to pay for everything. His lawyer, his opponent's lawyer, court cost. The whole bill is footed by the party that doesn't win the trial. In case they reach an agreement, that bill is usually split somewhere (most of the time in the middle), but we're talking trials here that are already won.
So far I thought it's the same in the US?

Here it is totally different.

General rule: each side pays his or her own fees.

Generally lawyer gets paid by the hour.

Lawyer works for "contingent" fee usually only in certain specialized, well-understood areas of the law. E.g., personal injury, tax certiorari, workers compensation, collections.

"Malicious prosecution" cases don't arise until after the earlier case was won by the defendant, which would take years. The malicious prosecution case would then take a number of additional years to play out. A

I think a lot of Slashdotters are unfamiliar with the way large cases like this play out. This is the same reason why there are not very many lawyers that would take on big tobacco. You have to have a law firm that is staffed and willing to go several millions into the red on billable hours just to compete with the RIAA's defense team, who will surely go farther into the red on billable hours to avoid a precedent setting outcome.

Interesting that you should make that analogy, as the RIAA's last firm -- Shook Hardy and Bacon -- were lawyers for "big tobacco".

Interesting that you should make that analogy, as the RIAA's last firm -- Shook Hardy and Bacon -- were lawyers for "big tobacco".
That is interesting. Do their business cards say "specializing in defending outdated business models by abusing the legal system?":)